Poland plans drastic cut to Warsaw flights in traffic controller row

WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland could dramatically minimize again on flights to and from Warsaw from Might 1 if a dispute with air traffic controllers in excess of shell out and disorders is not settled, according to legislation posted in advance of negotiations were being established to resume on Tuesday.

Virtually 90 percent of air traffic controllers in Warsaw chose to quit alternatively than acknowledge new doing the job polices, which they say threaten security. Some have by now remaining and the see interval for the remaining 136 ends on April 30.

This will leave Warsaw’s two most important airports with only 26 controllers in between them and possible guide to mass cancellations of flights to and from Warsaw, but authorities stated flights passing through its airspace really should not be cancelled.

“Fifty percent of these flights will be manufactured in our airspace, fifty percent of these flights… will be redirected to neighboring countries, but flights around Poland will not be cancelled,” Civil Aviation Authority head Piotr Samson informed journalists.

The govt declared late on Monday in the official gazette that from May perhaps 1, the Chopin and Modlin international airports would only be operational from 0930 to 1700 nearby time owing to a deficiency of air targeted traffic controllers. The legislation gave a checklist of flight places that would be prioritised.

Airlines affected would involve Lot Polish Airways, Wizz Air and Lufthansa, which all operate out of Chopin airport, and Ryanair, which flies out of Modlin.

RYANAIR ANGER

Ryanair said on Tuesday it had complained to the European Fee about the legislation mainly because it believes the record of prioritised destinations unfairly favours Whole lot.

“The Polish federal government has first mismanaged the pay dispute with Warsaw air website traffic controllers and has now shown total disregard for Ryanair passengers, picking to safeguard non-necessary Good deal routes… at the expenditure of key Ryanair routes these types of as Stockholm and Milan,” Ryanair chief government Michael O’Leary mentioned.

Among the proposals noticed as unacceptable by the union are a minimize in air targeted traffic controllers’ pay back, an enhance from 8 to 12 in the highest quantity of hrs they can work in a shift and the probability for controllers to function by itself.

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The federal government suggests it has approved the proposals on protection and that talks are now focussing on income difficulties, but that the controllers’ expectations are far too substantial, specifically given decreases in air site visitors thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The air targeted visitors controllers’ union suggests its basic safety problems have not been sufficiently resolved and that the government is misrepresenting how substantially they generate.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz, Supplemental reporting by Anna Koper, Enhancing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Gareth Jones)